Search Engine Optimization Articles

NOTE: SEO ITEMS FROM SEPTEMBER 2004 ONWARD ARE LISTED IN THE SEO CATEGORY OF SEARCH TOPICS IN SEARCH ENGINE WATCH.

This page lists articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web that focus on traditional, non-paid "search engine optimization" tactics, ways to get what's often described as "free," "natural" or "organic" traffic from search engines.

NOTE: Article links often change, especially the older an article is. In case of a bad link, use the publication's search facility, which most have, and search for the headline. Also, some very old articles flagged "no longer online" might indeed be online -- but the former URL no longer resolves, and it's not worth the time investment for me to try and personally track down these down versus spending time producing new content.

If only you knew the exact number of target keywords to use in the exact correct places on your web page, then you'd skyrocket to the top of the search engines. Not. I agree with Karon Thackston. Chasing after the perfect density is likely to be futile effort. Instead, natural writing with a few basic tips as she suggests is likely to be more helpful for most.

Jeremy Zawodny is a prominent blogger, Yahoo RSS evangelist and was a panelist on our session about search, blogs and RSS. He shares his thoughts about participating. It was a packed session, amazing given it was in the last time slot of the last day. By the way, he mentions my use of the term "web feeds" as an umbrella for RSS and Atom feeds. I use -- but I didn't coin it. I picked it up out of the RSS renaming contest that was held: http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000167.html. And I guess I should be saying "webfeeds" rather than "web feeds."

Representatives of Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves and LookSmart offer a inside glimpse of how they operate under the hood. This version of the article for Search Engine Watch members goes into more detail about Yahoo's free and paid inclusion programs, Google's recommended tips for webmasters, an update on Google's advertising programs, questionable optimization tactics all of the engines consider borderline spam, and much more.

"How can the mighty New York Times, which considers itself America's paper of record, be the paper of record in cyberspace when its articles barely show up on Google," the story asks. The answer is easy. Because the New York Times pulls much of its content behind password protection after about a week. If the page is no longer accessible, people can no longer link to it (which helps with search ranking), and the actual content of the story is lost.

The NYT apparently doesn't care, figuring that the money it makes off of archive sales and database searches is more important than Google traffic. Plus, not mentioned is the fact that many stories will show up within Google News for up to a month through a special crawling deal that's been arranged with Google.

Blogger Anil Dash won the second and final round in the Nigritude Ultramarine SEO contest. Unlike what the story says, Dash indeed did win through backlinking, not because of a single post. He benefited from having the many readers of his blog backlink to him using the words "nigritude ultramarine" in their links. For more background on the contest, see my past article: The Nigritude Ultramarine Search Engine Optimization Contest. Also nice screenshots at the official competition web site.

Blending the traditional tools of public relations with innovative search marketing techniques opens a new avenue of promotion for savvy content providers and site owners. This version for Search Engine Watch members offers specific, actionable tips for creating search engine friendly press releases, as well as tips for using blogs and RSS tools for public relations efforts.

If I ever find more time, I want to start a "search log" feature where I document various searches I do each day and how things have gone wrong or right. So this piece resonated with me. Dave Wilkie wanted to reroof his house and needed a local contractor. Instead of using the print yellow pages, he risked doing a web search. Many hyphenated domains and doorway page middlemen later, frustration ruled.

It's sweeping the web -- or at least search engine optimizers -- a new contest to rank tops for the term nigritude ultramarine on Google. Why that term, what's it all mean -- and why is Howard Dean close to winning on Teoma?

We had a great session at Search Engine Strategies in New York about how to do public relations via search engines. Rob Key was one of our well-received speakers. In this piece, he shares some of his idea on how SEO can be applied to managing a company's reputation on the web, rather than the usual thought of just getting visitors.

From number one to oblivion on Google. Lesson learned for this web site? Its survival came by not counting on Google solely for traffic. As for jumping on the "search engine optimization wheel" -- chasing after tips that give only transient gains -- don't do it. And I couldn't agree more. As always, focus first on a great site for your customers, with rich content. Long-term search engine success has often flowed from this.

Site dropped in Google or Yahoo? Client's site dropped in Google or Yahoo? Step away from checking your keyword rankings and look instead at your traffic or conversions. It may that there's no need to go to panic stations.

Many advertising agencies, design firms, and even web hosting companies offer search engine marketing services for their customers. However, some of the methods they use to obtain top positions are considered to be spam by the major search engines. How do you tell the difference?

What is the best way to move a site from one server to another without affecting search engine visibility? After a site redesign, how can you communicate to the search engines that old URLs should be redirected to new URLs without affecting positioning? A panel of experts addressed these and other server-specific issues.

Nice tip here on how to tell a web site that you are the Google spider (or potentially, any other spider). However, I doubt this lets you interact with a site in the way that the Google spider will. Just saying you are Google does nothing to cause your browser to act the way Google's crawler actually does, any more than saying to someone that you are a famous movie star will convince someone of the case. The tip is mainly useful if you want to see content that's targeted at a particular spider through the use of user agent name. For sites that use IP targeting, this won't help.

+ Will paid ads on Google or Overture hurt your unpaid listings? + Why can't I find the submit link for an Open Directory category? + Do I have to pay a new submission fee if I change my web page? + Where can I find out the popularity level of shopping search engines? + Why did the Open Directory drop my sites? + Do search engines read the words within links? + How do we get Google to drop misleading and spammy web pages? + Is there an easy way to find out what the cost or a particular term is on the various search engines? + I don't see AllTheWeb in the search engine ratings pages you maintain. Why not? + I am trying to find out which search engines have the most users and what keywords are used the most when navigating to sites in particular subjects. Can you help? + Why do you recommend search engine math commands over Boolean commands? + Do you know anything if Froogle will be released in the UK or elsewhere? What other UK shopping search engines are there? + Is the meta description tag still worth doing?

Enter "weapons of mass destruction" on Google, and you'll reach a very funny web page. It's a take-off on an Internet Explorer error page that makes references about being unable to locate weapons of mass destruction. For the record, Inktomi and AllTheWeb also make this one of their top ranked pages, as well.

+ Is paid inclusion for crawlers like AllTheWeb and Ask Jeeves/Teoma worth the bother? + Is Cold Fusion a problem for Google? Can it follow from a form to pages generated from it? + I received a bogus invoice about getting listed on search engines! How can companies like this be stopped? + Google's broken! It no longer lists descriptions for many URLs. Why? + Google's homepage now has porn links on it! Why hasn't there been an outcry over this? + I was contacted by a company that swears they have an agreement with Microsoft to sell navigational keywords that work with the MSN 8 browser. Is this real? + The wrong domain name was printed on our packaging, and we can't buy the name from the company that actually owns it. How can we solve this problem with search engines?

+ To be found in both UK and US search engines, do I need to pay inclusion fees twice? + Is there a search engine that would allow me to see web sites as they were presented in the past? + Is white space and JavaScript before my body copy hurting my rankings? + Should we use dashes or underscores in our URLs to separate keywords? + How can I get Google to count links to a domain that I accidentally let expire? + What does it really mean when Lycos InSite advertises that I'll be shown on non-US search engines? + What are the best resources for finding information about search engine technology? + When a search engine spider crawls across your site, does it count as one unique visitor or multiple unique visitors? + Do frames still matter given that "paid listings" are the norm these days? + Where can I get software to run my own search engine? + Is labeling graphics with applicable keywords considered spam? + Why am I getting an "Internal Server Error" when I try to submit to the Open Directory? + How can I target Germany with pay per click ads? + Will search engines see HTML text that's generated by JavaScript? + Do search engines consider mirror pages to be spam? + Where can I get software to search my Linux-based web site?

In this article, a look at systemic improvements that you can and should make across your site as a whole. Doing so should increase the traffic you gain from search engines naturally, or what in 2002 started being referred to as "organic" traffic.

There are two basic strategies you can follow to help increase the odds your page will turn up when someone specifies case in a case-sensitive search engine. One is conservative, the other is for those absolutely paranoid about missing out on traffic. A look, in this article.

Macromedia Flash and other non-HTML formats can pose problems for search engines, unless you take appropriate steps to optimize the content. Search Engine Watch members should follow through from the blue box to the members edition of this article.

I've said it many, many times. Small, simple changes to make your site more friendly to search engines can sometimes have a big impact on traffic. Discovery.com saw a 300 percent in traffic from Google. Did they buy links from sites with a high PR value? No. Did they get involved with a sophisticated link swapping service? No. Were customized doorway pages and cloaking involved? No. All the site apparently did was change the home page from being served dynamically into a more search engine friendly HTML design.

Macromedia is reaching out to search engines to help make Flash content created with its software more accessible. That's great news, assuming your Flash files contain some substantial textual information. If they don't, then expect you'll still have problems with search engines.

This definitive guide to search engine optimization and marketing offers solid fundamental advice for creating search engine friendly sites, at the same time debunking myths and snake oil "techniques" that can bedevil the unwary webmaster.

Despite persistent myths, there is no silver bullet: The best search engine optimization firms conquer client marketing challenges through research, education and plain ol' hard work. Search Engine Watch members should click through to the special members-edition.

Managing a search engine optimization effort needn't be stressful if you follow these tips from a panel of experts. Search Engine Watch members should follow the link to a special members-edition of this article.

Search engines don't read Flash. That means if you use Flash, they may not find navigation links in the Flash content that leads them other pages. Flash-heavy pages also probably lack enough HTML content that would allow them to get ranked well for particular terms. This article has more tips on what not to do.

The Code Red virus may be having an impact on search engine optimization work. The article below details how the virus produced a seeming increase of traffic, without there being any real increase at all.

Using the terms you want a page to be found for in the HTML title is essential. Unfortunately, some people don't take the extra step of ensuring the title is also written to attract clickthrough. Good tips on making your titles standout.

A camera retailer goes from getting four percent of his traffic from search engines to 24 percent, after using the Inceptor search engine optimization software (now called Excedia). In addition, conversion rates were higher than with other online advertising efforts.

Study finds that search engine referrals are low -- but searching as an activity remains high. This explains the search gap. And, if you've focused all your efforts on getting people to your web site via search engines rather considering what happens after they arrive, you could be a victim of the gap. Learn how to maximize visits to your site.

Jill Whalen and Heather Lloyd-Martin begin a new monthly column on ensuring that your page content is well written from a search engine's perspective. An introduction to the concept, and what they'll be providing in columns to come.

Shari Thurow is one of the Search Engine Strategies conference's most popular speakers, covering ways to make existing content in a web site more friendly to search engines. A succinct summary of her tips and advice on achieving good rankings.

Don't get mad that a search engine continues to list dead links to your site. Instead, make use of that traffic! Pay particular attention to producing a custom 404 page. It's an essential component of making your site more usable.

The U.K. Supreme Court has granted permission in part for Google to appeal against a ruling relating to a dispute over the user information through cookies via use of the Apple Safari browser.
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